THEY are the two highest scorers in Scottish football this season, but incredibly they brought the curtain down on 2018 by firing blanks.

There have not been too many occasions this term when either Stephen Dobbie or Lawrence Shankland have failed to keep their goal tally ticking upwards. Queen of the South captain Dobbie, back in the starting line-up following a three-game injury absence, has an impressive 29 goals in 25 appearances, while Ayr United’s red-hot marksman Shankland is snapping at his heels having found the back of the net 28 times in 26 games.

The prolific pair both had goals in mind in this hard-fought 1-1 draw. Shankland had an early chance which he fired straight at Alan Martin, while Dobbie carved out an opportunity after the interval as he jinked past defenders but was denied by Ayr goalkeeper Ross Doohan.

Who will come out on top in the scoring charts come the end of the season will depend on what happens next month when the January transfer window opens. Although Dobbie could still cut it at a higher level than the Ladbrokes Championship, the 36-year-old won’t be moving on at this stage of his career but question marks remain on where Shankland will be plying his trade.

There is lots of speculation surrounding the 23-year-old, with Swansea City, Sunderland and Rangers all linked with a move for the player, and it would take a significant offer for Ayr to cash in as he spearheads their title challenge but he could be off to pastures new.

If Shankland does go then he won’t be disappointed to see the back of Queen of the South. While he has scored against seven of their Championship opponents this season, he has failed to do so in three outings against the Palmerston outfit. Shankland was well marshalled by defensive duo Callum Fordyce and Callum Semple and Queens goal hero Josh Todd was pleased they were able to shut out the leagues top goalscorer, with 18 Championship strikes, once again.

Todd said: “Obviously we speak about Shanks because he is the top goalscorer in the league, so he is a threat.

“We didn’t have so much a game plan but obviously we try to nullify his strengths.

“Which you can’t do 100 per cent of the time and so he got in a few times but if you can’t defend the first phase, we get the second phase.

“They only scored the one goal and we got the draw. All in all I felt we defended well against them.

“It’s a battle so we kind of cancelled each other out. Either team could have nicked it, they had more of the ball but we had some clear-cut chances where we could have won it.”

Queens dropped down a place in the league to sixth but moved a point closer to the play-off positions and Todd believes the return of Dobbie can benefit their promotion push.

He said: “Stephen chips in with loads and loads of goals, so once we get him back playing 90 minutes and firing on all cylinders again hopefully we can have more quality going forward.

“We can force our way into the play-offs. We speak about it every week and we’re looking up and not looking down.”

Todd gave Queens the lead when he drilled home a cut-back by Andy Stirling but that was cancelled out by Ayr’s Michael Moffat before the interval.

Ayr have now drawn three games in a row to trail leaders Ross County by three points but manager Ian McCall is not concerned as they edge towards their first points target.

McCall said: “Listen, we’re closer to 40 points, that’s it. It might be a good point, we just need to go and win next week.

“Dundee United were beaten and so were Inverness. So in the top four we’ve actually gone a point ahead of them.”